Around October 19, 1880

Joel Johnson, a well-known citizen of Baldwin County, Alabama, was riding quietly along a public road near Sibley's Mill. Unexpectedly, an African American hiding behind a tree shot Johnson in the head, stunning him and throwing him from his horse. The black man then shot him twice more, first in the wrist and again in the side. Taking him for dead, the assailant dragged Johnson three-hundred...

If it were not for the courageous actions of Mr. I. P. Irving one Wednesday evening in 1882, disaster assuredly would have befallen the railway system outside Waynesboro. Four trains were supposed to meet and pass four sections of extra trains traveling in opposite directions on the C. &. O. road. When the extra trains were tardy, eleven trains on Waynesboro's main tracked were unable to travel...

M. Rowan Barclay, carrier of the Lexington Gazette, printed a special broadside in 1881 to the subscribers of his newspaper, urging them to realize the true meaning of Christmas. His broadside was a poem titled "An Incident of Christmas Eve" and told the story of an old woman who was unable to cross the street. Several passersby overlooked her until Barclay introduced a group of rowdy...

Atlanta, Georgia set off a miniature gold rush. Newspapers in the region responded to the bonanza by publishing detailed articles about the development of gold mines in the region. One such article appearing in the Enterprise and Mountaineer of Greenville, South Carolina on December 24, 1879 declared that the Pigeon Roost mine would be the largest and most productive mining camp this side...

Racial tensions rose to the boiling point after a black citizen named Floyd was lynched by a white mob. In response to the perceived threat of a black race riot in reprisal for this atrocity, parties of well armed men' descended upon the city, while the neighboring city of Richmond sent six deputy sheriffs to restore order.' In addition to this the city of Houston escalated...

Among an enormous crowd of four hundred newspaper reporters and interested visitors, the verdict of the trial of John W. Guiteau was delivered at the courthouse on the morning of the twenty-third of January. Although the court officers continually shouted for silence, Guiteau never ceased his criticisms of the court and Judge Porter even as the judge read off the charges against him. Judge Porter...

After five years of construction, James Eads jetty system officially succeeded by lowering the depth of the Mississippi river to 30 feet at its mouth. This accomplishment allowed for the port of New Orleans to accommodate the larger ocean-going ships of the 19th century. In 1883 this improvement would be complemented by the beginning of regular freight routes through New Orleans by the Southern...

Lollie Crease Lewis was attending school in the city of Little Rock and blissfully under the impression that her father's health was improving. After she received letters from her mother at home, however, Lewis was concerned to hear that her father's condition had actually not improved at all. Lewis was concerned enough to write to her mother on February 11 and 12, 1882 to see if she should...

It wasn't every day after the Civil War that former slaves and former slave-owners would admit to having something in common, much less celebrate it openly. But in the early summer of 1879 at the commencement exercises for Howard University, they did just that. The crowd began to arrive and soon it became clear that there was not nearly enough room to seat everyone who wanted to witness the...

Little Chief of the Cheyenne Indian tribe once said, "I'd rather die than conform to the white man's way." On the morning of May 19, 1879, Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz spoke to the Cheyenne Indians and their leader, Little Chief. Little Chief was old and spoke for the Cheyenne Indians, while the five other tribe members, being very young, listened. Schurz had told Little Chief, "the...